- 11 Rules of Writing
Concise guide to some of the most frequently violated rules of writing, punctuation, and grammar.
- A Research Guide for Students
How to write research papers, and do presentations. Virtual library of links arranged by Dewey Decimal Classification.
- A Word With You
A daily on-line column, featuring little known facts about well known words and phrases.
- A.Word.ADay
The music and magic of words. This is the website for the mailing list A.Word.A.Day (AWAD), which sends a vocabulary word and its definition to the subscribers every day.
- Acronym Finder
Searchable database of 80,000+ acronyms and meanings. Covers: common acronyms, computers, technology, government, telecommunications, and military acronyms.
- Adding Value to your Links
A bulleted guide to using links effectively in hypertext writing.
- American English
Canadian-American/British translation. Notes on American English, British English, and Canadian English, in spelling and word choice.
- AmeriSpeak
"Expressions of our American ancestors." The colorful slang of Americans of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.
- APA Style
Official American Psychological Association site includes frequently asked questions, guidelines for electronic media citations and spelling and ordering information.
- AskOxford.com
For questions on English grammar, spelling, and usage. Search a dictionary of words, names or quotations.
- Bartleby.com: Strunk's Element of Style (1918)
For use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature. It aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style.
- Bartleby.com: The Columbia Guide to Standard American English
Kenneth G. Wilson's handbook includes descriptive and prescriptive examples with hyperlinked cross-references.
- CBC News: Words, Woe & Wonder
An in-depth look at the words we use from CBC News.
- Cliche
List of 2000 English cliches with some statistical and literary notes on their use.
- Cliche Finder
Special tool word-searches 3,300 cliches.
- Cliche Site
Clichés, sayings or phrases listed with definitions and explanations. Clichés are organized by subject and alphabetically and you can use the search function.
- Common Errors in English
Catalogue of writing or speaking mistakes and easily confusable words, with corrections.
- Dan Kurland's Criticalreading.com
Explains the fundamentals of critical reading and writing. Offers a way to recognize what a text "says," what a text "does," and what a text "means" by analyzing choices of content, language, and structure.
- Deadwood Phrases
Prune the deadwood phrases from your writing. Site lists the worst from A to Z.
- Dr. NAD's Prig Page.
Tests of usage, built interactively.
- E-dition: Dictionary of Concise Writing
A look at word usage in popular culture. The Dictionary of Concision is a complete manual of several thousand wordy phrases.
- Episodic Writing
Thomas Wolfe, episodic writing, and the future of literary fiction beyond the book.
- Exploring English
An online tutorial for the parts of speech with style notes for the English Language.
- Focusing on Words
Subscription-based site for vocabulary development, showcasing the Latin and Greek roots of English words.
- Frequently Asked Questions about English
Answers to common questions about usage, style, grammar and punctuation.
- Garbl's Writing Resources Online
Annotated directory of web sites focusing on English grammar, style, usage, plain language, active writing, words, reference sources, online writing experts, word play and books on writing.
- Glossarist.com
A searchable directory of thousands of glossaries and topical dictionaries containing terms and definitions on hundreds of subjects.
- Good Grammar, Good Style
Articles and answers to frequently asked questions about grammar, mechanics, and style. Links and bibliography.
- Grammar Slammer
This help file indexes style and usage, capitalization, abbreviations, punctuation, letter writing, common mistakes and a grammar glossary.
- Guide to Grammar and Style
The information ranges from copy editing to elements of style to discussions. Practical information about the writing craft.
- Guide to Grammar and Writing
Digital handouts on grammar and English usage. From subject-verb agreement and use of articles to exercises in parallel structures and argumentative essays. You can submit questions about grammar and writing.
- Guides for Better Science Writing
Bibliography of style manuals for scientific research, writing, and presentation. Guides for biology, medicine, chemistry, engineering, geology, and mathematics.
- How to Write an Explication
Step-by-step directions to writing an explication. Good and bad examples provided.
- KCI: Reader Based Writing Style Guide
Designed to help you bulletproof your writing. Extensive, alphabetical index of points of style.
- Language Wrangler
Provocative essays on word usage, writing ideas and style.
- Linguistic Phenomena/Devices
A list of lesser-known features in English writing. Hendiadys, holonyms, and hypernyms.
- Logophilia
The word lover's web site by Paul McFedries.
- Macedon's Taberna: The Craft of Writing
Only 10% of writing is talent (maybe less), another 30% is having something interesting to say. The rest is being able to say it well. Talent and content amount to little without skill, and skill is what we learn.
- Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association is the official guide to non-fiction writing. The site includes a guide to MLA style.
- NoodleBib - The MLA Bibliography Composer
A free tool to create, edit, and save your MLA-style bibliography online, then publish it to a Web page, email it, or save it as RTF and open it in Microsoft Word.
- Online Classes in Rhetoric, University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota offers a number of Internet correspondence courses in rhetoric. Sign up here.
- Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
Help in discovering, organizing, revising, and editing informal, thesis, argumentative, and exploratory essays.
- Phrases Thesaurus
A generator of headlines and copy for journalists. Enter a word and the database is searched to provide a list of phrases related to that word.
- Plain English Campaign
An independent group fighting for plain English in public communication. We oppose gobbledygook, jargon and legalese.
- Plain Language Action Network
Promoting clearer communication between the public and governement. This site has resources for writers to attain that goal.
- Pseudo Dictionary
The dictionary for words that wouldn't make it into dictionaries.
- Rhetorical Figures
From alliteration to zeugma, and everything in between, all the figures of speech are here.
- Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature
Bimonthly publication, SPELL/Binder, contains articles on grammar, usage, word origins, and other subjects of interest to language lovers.
- SoYouWanna Avoid Common Writing Errors
We compiled a list of the most common writing errors people tend to make. This is not a primer on grammar or essay-writing. This is a checklist of things which you might well do and which you must stop doing.
- Suite 101: Communications Skills
Archive of articles covering writing and speaking skills, with emphasis on clear communication, basic design, communicating with international and multicultural audiences.
- Suite101: English Grammar and Style
Archive of articles about English grammar and style.
- Ted's Punctuation Guide
A punctuation guide describing how to use the period, ellipsis, comma, semicolon, colon, question mark, exclamation mark, quotation marks, parentheses, apostrophe, hyphen, dash, and capitalization.
- That's Right Words
Articles about grammar information and hints. Australian site. Errs on the side of "correctness," not that of modern usage.
- The Book of Cliches
A compilation of common phrases, euphemisms, and rationales for times of trouble. Organized by occasion.
- The Cool Word of the Day Page
From York University in Toronto, Canada.
- The Economist's Style Guide
Entertaining and instructive in-house guide to writing and usage.
- The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing
Popular, award-winning online writing guide. Authoritative help with research, style, structure, major citation styles, mechanics, and revision.
- The Philosophy of Punctuation
Paul Robinson's classic essay on periods, commas, semicolons, dashes.
- The Sports Cliche List
A large, searchable collection of sports cliches, lingo, and jargon.
- The Tongue Untied
Grammar, punctuation and style for journalists.
- The Wonderful Writing Skills Unhandbook
An interactive site that uses the writing process to teach writing skills.
- The Word Centre
Consulting firm dedicated to training businesses to use plain English. Free newsletter and professional editing services.
- Top20Composition.com
Online directory for grammar, spelling, puncuation, research, creative writing, and proofreading resources.
- Verbage
If you are looking for just the right word, you may find it here. If not, you can suggest your own.
- Verbivore
Richard Lederer's page, with contact information and a handful of his language-loving articles.
- What is Good Hypertext Writing?
There is more to writing than putting words next to each other, and there is more to writing hypertext than throwing together a bunch of links. By Julia Degener.
- Wired Style
Notes on the emerging language of technology. Reference and discussion tool. Last updated 1997.
- Word Fugitives
An interactive column by The Atlantic's Barbara Wallraff. Discovers needs in our language and recommends new words to fill them.
- Word Lab
A message board where you can request and brainstorm unique words, names, titles, coinages, puns, phrases, slogans and slang.
- Word Quests
Word lists that provide thematic units of English words derived from Latin and Greek sources.
- Wordiness
A list of words and phrases to purge from your writing.
- Words, Words, and More Words
Discussions and articles concerning words.
- WordWatch
Digs up a word or phrase out of the Bank of English and holds it up for inspection and comment.
- WordWizard
Portal for word lovers. Learn about word meanings, slang, quotations, insults, and famous authors. Wordwizard offers a round trip across the English language.
- World Wide Words
Explores some of the byways history, quirks, curiosities and evolution of the English language. Columns on a variety of subjects.
- Writing For Multimedia
Style guide for multimedia.
- Yale Style Manual
For the design of Web pages and Web sites. Covers graphic and information design, page layout, Web graphics, site organization, navigation, and Web multimedia content.
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